


The Scarlet Empress Demands Breakfast

by Wasuremono



Category: Exalted
Genre: Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-26
Updated: 2010-12-26
Packaged: 2017-10-14 03:25:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/144828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wasuremono/pseuds/Wasuremono
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As the Time of Tumult draws near and the Age of Sorrows prepares to come to its terrible end, even the most powerful woman in the world can't get any damn bacon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Scarlet Empress Demands Breakfast

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sleepfighter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepfighter/gifts).



> Sometimes, story ideas get stuck in your head. I had to get this one out. That is all.

"There's been, er, um, a supply failure."

"What precisely constitutes a 'supply failure?'" The Scarlet Empress sat upright in bed, smoothing her hair as she stared at the stammering servant by her bedside. Eight Jade Cranes was generally a bit less nervous than this, even on mornings when the Empress forgot to disengage the alarms upon waking. Only last week, the maidservant had delivered a rather more confident morning greeting while balancing on top of the bedpost, heedless of the adamant caltrops below. The Empress wasn't sure she wanted to know what had her shaken.

"An, er, disturbance in Pangu Prefecture, Your Gloriousness. A sort of peasant uprising led by House Cynis's, um, sex workers, apparently championed by some new import from the North who's calling himself --"

"Eight, I have absolutely no desire to hear what this man is calling himself." The Empress was already working through the permutations in her head, and she had no desire to contemplate the potential career of the Stud Stallion of the North this early in the morning. "I presume you mean to tell me this has prevented the Pangu pork shipment from arriving, which is presumably why we're out of bacon."

"Yes, Your Eminence."

"Very well. Am I to assume a similar state has befallen the eggs?"

"There was an accident at the Heptagram, Your Jade Perfection. Erymanthoi in every chicken coop along the Shadowed Coast --"

"Spare me the details. What about pancakes?"

"Er," began Eight Jade Cranes, predictably. "The latest shipment of Haltan pancake mix was waylaid outside of Nexus. Apparently an Anathema river-pirate calling herself The Resplendent --"

"I have had enough for many lifetimes of Anathema called The Resplendent Something, Eight, and I am hungry. What in Creation _is_ there for breakfast?"

"Um. Well, the kitchen still has bread. I believe there is half a canister of Auspicious Talismans remaining, although that may be the last for a while. The Prismatic Mar-Bit Forge outside of Gem is currently being besieged --"

"Fine, we'll skip the Talismans. Please, Eight, have the kitchen make me some toast."

"I, er, cannot, Your Immaculate Draconicity."

"Why not?"

"The toaster is broken. Mnemon dropped the tongs in again."

"I thought those tongs were supposed to prevent her from breaking the Pasiap-forsaken toaster, Eight."

"It would appear they don't work, Your -- ma'am."

"Fine," said the Empress. "Bring me bread and whatever animal products the kitchen's been able to scrounge from the last disaster. And tea. Don't you dare make excuses about tea." Eight Jade Cranes looked for a moment as if there may have been an excuse, but blessedly, she stayed silent and scurried away.

The Empress sighed, reaching towards her bedside table and retrieving the volume there. It was time to see what the Broken-Winged Crane said about breakfast in Malfeas.


End file.
